“Are you dating anyone?” the woman asked me after church over mini muffins and bad coffee.
I shook my head.
“Oh, you have plenty of time,” she said to me. Turning to my mom, she added, “My daughter was a late bloomer.” I was spending the summer at home in Florida after graduation from college. I planned to move to Chicago to start teaching in the fall.
“Yeah, she got married in her late twenties,” she continued, my mom nodding along. I clutched my Styrofoam cup, inwardly marveling that I was no longer a college student, but was now labeled according to my marital status. I was now “a single.”
Even at the time I thought she was being a bit harsh in expecting her daughter to get married right out of college. And over the years, that phrase, “late bloomer,” has always grated on me.
Can God be “late”?
When you try to put your feet in the steps of Jesus as you live your life, can you describe any transition as “late”?
According to that woman, I would have gotten married “late,” at age 32. I would have had babies “late,” at age 33, 35, and 37. And I would have started writing “late” in my mid-30’s. But I don’t believe God is ever late.
Spring dragged her feet in arriving to Colorado this year. Tulips and daffodils, the first signs of spring, eased from the ground a few weeks later than they usually do.
We made it home from vacation last week just in time for the peonies in early June. I nearly didn’t see them because the thin stems couldn’t support the huge, fat blossoms and their faces were flattened against the rocky ground. As a first-time homeowner, this is my first summer here and I’ve watched curiously as each new flower type surges up and out, exploding in the Colorado sun, then shrivels just as a different bloom takes over the show. First daffodils, then red tulips, white apple blossoms, lilacs, irises, and now roses and fluffy peonies.
Not a single bloom has been late—each one a note rightly-timed in the rhythm of spring’s symphony.
Because spring seemed delayed this year, I was more eager—desperate, even–for its arrival. Spring unlocks a suppressed something in me and I want to weep when I spy the first green shoots poking from the dirt or bright flowers decorating the yard. For me, spring is an emotional release from months of cold, dreary, color-less winter, a catapult back into lusty life.
Waiting primes us for greater gratitude when the thing we wait for finally arrives. Though I fully embraced being single and knew that marriage would not bring me ultimate joy or pleasure, I still longed for a life-long companion. And though I knew (or thought I knew) how children would alter the landscape of my life, I still yearned for the interruption. The long years of hopeful winters made me more thankful for spring when it finally came.
I’m not a young mom, but I do have young kids. I don’t fit the “young mom” category that many church ladies cluster women into. In fact, many moms with kids the ages of my kids are at least ten years younger than me. But I still don’t believe I got married or had kids “late.”
I published my first piece of writing at age 36, not because I was a “late bloomer,” but because my talent bloomed exactly when it was supposed to.
“My soil is like silk,” my 78 year old neighbor—my gardening mentor–boasted when I lamented that mine is like a rock. “You need to really work on your soil before you try planting in it,” she advised.
Art, too, often requires years of silent cultivation before the first flower can break through the ground.
Browsing through a bookstore recently, I picked up a book from the shelf about Laura Ingalls Wilder. I was surprised to learn that she didn’t start writing until she was in her 40’s, and didn’t publish Little House in the Big Woods until she was in her 60’s. Perhaps her childhood experiences needed years of marinating before they were ready to share with the world.
“Late” implies something didn’t go as planned. Perhaps the Master Gardener needs a bit more time with his hands in the soil, kneading, folding in nutrients, transforming rot and death into healthy soil for new growth to form. We may long for change, but waiting doesn’t mean Jesus isn’t there, that God isn’t working, or that plans have gone awry. Because in God’s kingdom, nothing blooms “late,” but always right on time.
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What are you waiting for? In what ways are you a “late bloomer”? How would your life have been different if everything had followed your own timeline?
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I really appreciate this post! I’m 32, and still long to get married. I know there are kind intentions behind phrases like “You are still young yet” but there is also a sense of an expiration date even it hasn’t come yet. I’m coming to see God’s story writing looks so different for each of us and I can rest in the fact that He hasn’t forgotten me. Remembering He isn’t late, that I’m not late, is also a helpful reminder in this season. Thank you!!
Yes, you are not forgotten. I remember all those “helpful” people. I wrote this for some of them;-)
Love everything you have said here. It’s so easy to measure our achievements to our culture’s timeline. “Because in God’s kingdom, nothing blooms “late,” but always right on time.”
Thanks, Stephanie!
This is a beautiful post. I think of all the Biblical figures who must have thought life and time had passed them by: Abraham and Sarah, Zechariah and Elizabeth, just to name a few. But God has a different sense of timing than we do.
So true. And the ones that never saw what they hoped for, too. God was still Emmanuel through their entire lives.